'Despicable Me' Sequel Already in the Works

With only a few days' worth of receipts on the way to the bank, Universal and Illumination Entertainment are prepping a sequel to Despicable Me. Of course, since it's the only thing resembling a smash Universal has had in ages, this completely makes sense. Despicable Me is a good enough film, but kind of a waste of your 3-D dollars, though. However, that's about the only waste involved here. The film was made for about a third of what it costs to do a typical Pixar movie, and has just about made back its production budget and when the international totals come in, the marketing budget will be more than be taken care of. But with this film looking like it could hit $200 million or so in the US, depending on how it fares in the next couple weeks, the lower budget will have to force DreamWorks and Pixar and regular old Disney animation to look at their vehicles again. Sure, Toy Story is making tons of money, but most animation costs well over $100 million, and it's pointless, really. As for Universal, which has been looking for any good news generally and specifically a path to follow for its animated ventures, this really is a shot in the arm. The Tale of Despereaux did not do well (it also had a very modest budget, by the way), and for about 20% more than last year's Up! cost, Universal has made Despicable Me, Despereaux, and last year's entries from Focus, 9 and Coraline. Two of those made money, although it's wrong to say Coraline was really a hit. But the direction is clearly to go in cheaper and even though the films aren't as sublime as Pixar, it could give Universal a real leg up against the rest of the studios. It hopes to make the animated Addams Family with Tim Burton, Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, and Ricky Gervais' The Flanimals in the years to come, so we can see that on the whole the type of movie is a little different than what we'd see from Disney or even DreamWorks, as well.

Comments

[Ashton]

You said in your article " most animation costs well over $100 million, and it's pointless, really. " First off computer animation has dropped in price year after year. It is a lot cheaper to make a 3D animated movie now then what it was a few years ago. Second of all some people like quality... I don't know if you know what that means, especially when it comes to animation. For example you could very well make this film for $ 1,000. All you would need is a good camera, audio files of yourself doing all the voices and paper cutouts of your characters moving to the audio voices. So yeah I think we as the audience should expect the bare minimum of quality, as long as it's the same story right? Yes it is true that some companies want to pay there employees enough money for them to live a comfortable life and maybe have enough to provide for a family. But screw that... lets make it as cheap as possible, lets make it so all of the artists have to work 60 to 80 hours long, have them not get paid what they deserve, because those guys don't deserve just a 40 hour week and enough to provide for a family right? You know thankfully there are still some companies out there that believe in quality in the art and taking care of the people that make it. Sure we can cheapen lots of things in life, but by doing that something of someone gets screwed (the raw end of the deal). Whether it's the art or the artists. And most people would not like to see either one get screwed. I bet there are lots of people that could write for this website, and could do your job for less and do twice as much production. Sure the writing might not be so good, the story might be less interesting, there might be a couple of misspelled words, but why pay you more money when it can be done cheaper, what is the point of doing that? Just a thought.